Hebrews 8 WBT
Summary: The author sums up his argument: believers have a high priest who serves in the true, heavenly sanctuary rather than an earthly copy, and who has obtained a ministry as much more excellent as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is established on better promises. Quoting Jeremiah 31 at length, he shows that God himself promised a new covenant, unlike the one made with Israel at the exodus which they broke, one in which God's laws would be written on hearts and minds rather than external tablets, with sins remembered no more. By speaking of a new covenant, the author concludes, God has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
1Now of the things which we have spoken [this is] the sum: We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;
2A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
3For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore [it is] of necessity that this man should have somewhat also to offer.
4For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, seeing there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:
5Who serve to the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished by God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See (saith he) [that] thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee in the mount.
6But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7For if that first [covenant] had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for the second.
8For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10For this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new [covenant], he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and groweth old [is] ready to vanish away.
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